''It's going to be okay, it's going to be okay.'' Jay said as he pulling me into his arms, they were warm and familiar. I dug my face into the neck of his black shirt as he comforted me. ''I won't let anything happen to you, don't worry.'' He repeated softly as he lightly patted my back and I inhaled the sweet scent of his skin.

My night was blurry to me as my eyes slowly fluttered open; my back ached when I started to sit up. I looked around at my surroundings and realized that I was sitting on the window seat at the beginning of the parting hallways; I could hear a low humming coming from underneath me. It was the song Beth, Jay and I had just watched an episode of glee and I remember him humming it to me because I liked it so much.
‘‘I’m sorry did I wake you, Ally? I didn’t mean to wake you, was it because of my humming? Ever since I heard that song it’s been stuck in my head.’’ He whispered softly in my right ear, with a smile starting to light up his face.
‘‘It’s okay that you woke me, Beth is a good song to have stuck in your head and I liked hearing you humming it.’’ I said softly returning Jay’s smile. There was a light touch to my head and I realized that Jay had been entwining his fingers in and out of my hair; I slowly lay back down against Jay’s chest. He was leaning up against the wall with me in his arms.
‘‘Aren’t you two just comfy? I guess we need to do laundry if you can’t even change your clothes.’’ A voice said from the end of the hallway.
‘‘M. Reily!’’ Jay and I both shouted, jumping off the window seat and away from each other.
‘‘We didn’t hear you coming, M. Reily. Sorry, that we didn’t get changed; I had Jay at the practice room with me for hours and we lost track of time.’’
‘‘Amarantha that still does not explain why you two were........ sitting the way you were.’’
‘‘Sorry again, M. Reily. I guess we just ended up walking back and sat down, the next thing we know we were asleep. No need to worry won’t happen again.’’ I said trying to keep my tone normal.
‘‘It better not, now get to your rooms and change. You still have you morning practice with Mrs. Malvy, even if you did some last night.’’ M. Reily said and walked hastily away.
‘‘Crappy- Doo! I thought he might have done more than that.’’ Jay said from beside me.
I turned to look at him and he seemed to have not realized what had almost happen by displaying a smile on his face. ‘‘Jay! You should be grateful that I can lie better than you, if it weren’t for me you would sent to another wood. And why didn’t you wake me up earlier, then we could have avoided this confrontation with M. Reily. You probably don’t even care, do you?’’
‘‘Wait, who said I didn’t care? I so do care, it’s not like anything even happened between us anyway. What is there to care about? If I might ask.’’ Jay said curiously.
‘‘Maybe the fact that now he’ll be keeping a close eye on both of us, he probably wouldn’t have minded if it were you and some other girl.’’
‘‘Ally, why does it matter what girl I was with?’’
‘‘Why? It only matters because of me, if only I wasn’t like this an-’’ I cut off hastily.
‘‘And what? Ally and what?’’ Jay asked deliberately.
‘‘Nothing, I-I just lost my tail, trail of thought.’’ Jay gave me questioning stare at my words. ‘‘Really it’s nothing, let’s just drop this and go get changed.’’ I added and started walking away.
‘‘Oh, no you don’t.’’ He said, grabbing my wrist and turning me to face him again. ‘‘You stuttered. You, Ally, never stutter. You can tell me, right? You know you can tell me anything, even if I may not want to hear it?’’ Jay asked, staring into my eyes. His blue eyes always had a special sparkle to them and now when he was concerned they sparkled even more.
‘‘I really wish I could tell you but I just can’t and if it were anything else I would tell you.’’ I said sadly, I hate lying to Jay. ‘‘I promise though that this subject will never come up again, I can at least promise you that.’’
‘‘Ally! I don’t even know what the subject is to begin with.’’
‘‘Jay, that just makes it all the more harder on me. Look, can we please just forget this conversation ever happened?’’
‘‘Tell me the truth and then I’ll forget all about this talk of ours.’’
I sighed. ‘‘I can’t tell you the truth, I truly wish I could but it’s just not my choice.’’ I lightly pulled my wrist from Jay’s grasp and started walking away again.
‘‘Ally, you always have a choice; nobody can take that away from you.’’ Jay said running up beside me.
‘‘Jay you don’t understand, it’s really not my choice. Please don’t make me do a spell on you; I don’t want to have to turn to magic in this situation. It would be better if we could just drop it, right now preferably.’’ I said stopping at the beginning of the stairs that led to the girl’s rooms.
‘‘I don’t want to drop it, why can’t you just tell me? I’ll keep it a secret if I have to.’’
‘‘I can’t! Okay? You have to get it through your head that I can’t tell you and I might never will. Just accept it.’’
‘‘When will you get it through your head that I don’t want to accept it and you would never use a spell on me. It’s just not you, I know you and you wouldn’t do that.’’
‘‘Jay, you don’t know me. Don’t say you do when you clearly don’t.’’ I took a couple of steps up the stairs and heard that Jay was following me. ‘‘Jay,’’ I said, stopping halfway up the stairs and slowly turned towards him. ‘‘You know you’re not allowed up here, not in the girl’s rooms; especially without permission. Go, get changed in your own room.’’
I started to turn around when he grabbed a hold of my arm, his touch was so light but I could feel the warmth in his fingers. ‘‘I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to make you mad. Please accept my apology. I’ll leave it alone.’’ He wore a small frown.
‘‘Jay, I’m not mad.’’ I smiled. ‘‘I accept your apology, now you should really go and get changed before M. Reily comes back. Okay?’’ I stared at him and he stared back, when he didn’t move or make a sound I bent down to have my mouth at his ear. ‘‘‘I think I hear them calling. Oh, Beth what can I do? Beth what can I do?’’’
Jay smiled at that and he put his palm against my right cheek and whispered in my left ear. ‘‘‘You say you feel so empty that our house just ain’t a home. I’m always somewhere else and you’re always there alone.’ But you know what? You’re never alone.’’
‘‘And how do you know that?’’
‘‘Because I won’t let you be alone, not ever and that’s a promise.’’ Jay whispered back and walked to his side of the hallway. When he reached the bottom of the stairs leading to the guy’s rooms he turned back to me, where I stood still. ‘‘Never alone.’’ He said and walked up the stairs and around the corner.
I walked the rest of the way up the stairs and turned around the corner. ‘‘Well, well, well, someone had a good night.’’
‘‘S***! Calida, can you learn not to sneak up on people?’’ I said as she materialized in front of me.
Her brown hair was tied up in a high bun; she was wearing her favourite pink tank-top with a banana on it saying ‘Where is all my yellowness?’, a pair of light brown shorts and her white sneakers. ‘‘Sneaking up on people is so much fun and I wouldn’t have had to have done it if you had come to bed last night. For god sakes you hair is a mess. What did you do, sleep on the window seat?’’
‘Well...’’
‘‘Oh, my god! You are going to be in so much trouble when Mr. Reily sees you, come on.’’ Calida said pulling me in the direction of our room. Calida and I have been sharing a room for the last seven years, she’s like the annoying big sister I never had. Thankfully I have never actually had any real siblings, so this doesn’t bother me like most. It also may have to do with the fact the in being an orphan I don’t actually know what brothers and sisters are supposed to be like.
Our room was like a two room apartment, we have one room where we slept and another that was the bathroom; we also had two closets, one was Calida’s and the other mine. The walls were filled with so many posters you could barely tell that the walls were supposed to be white; our beds were at the far end of the small room with the window in between us and our closets on either side of the door. The right side of the room was Calida’s, she has this strange thing where she always has to be on the right side, and I was on the left side.
Calida through me down my bed and shoved a hair brush into my hand. ''Brush.'' She ordered and turned to my closet.
I started brushing my hair, there were a lot of knots and so I had to pull extra hard. ''Oww.'' I muttered several times as I yanked hair out of my head.
''If you would have come to your own bed last night, you head wouldn't hurt like that. Here put theses on.'' Calida said passing me some of my clothes. She passed me my blue and green long-sleeve, my black jeans, a pair of clean socks and underwear and my black converse. I grabbed it in my arms and went to the bathroom to get changed.
While I was in the bathroom getting changed I also brushed my teeth and washed my face. I came out ten minutes later and Calida was sitting on her bed, playing on her laptop. ''I'm done.''
''I figured that when you walked out of the bath room.'' Calida said without looking up from her laptop.
‘‘You’re a pain sometimes, did you know that?''
''Ally, I know I'm a pain all the time. I just like being a pain so I don't really care when I am one. Now come on, we're going to be late for practice because of you.'' Calida said looking up at me and setting her laptop aside.
We walked out of the room and to the practice wing. The practice wing was about half the size of the rest of the house, around 32 hundred acres. The practice wing was like our kind of gym, it's where we trained and practiced our abilities. We had a sort of maze in one corner, to help us develop our thinking skills; a sort of obstacle course in another corner and the rest was our practice field.
''Get over here, Miss Cruz and Miss Saffron. You’re almost late for my class, again.'' Mrs. Malvy said with a wave of the hand for us to join the rest of the class, Calida and me walked over there and stood by Jay.
''I see you finally combed your hair.'' Jay whispered to me as Mrs. Malvy explained what we were going to do today.
''How'd you know she didn't comb her hair? Wait, Ally was with you all night?''
''Calida, can't you mind your own business?'' Jay whispered to her.
''Calida, can't you mind your own business?'' Jay whispered to her.
''Jayar and Amarantha, maybe you two could come up here and give a demonstration on the knock-over spell; since you two are talking.''
''Mrs. Malvy, I wasn't even talki-''
''No excuses, Miss Saffron. Come, hurry up give us the demonstration sometime today.'' Mrs. Malvy said motioning for Jay and me to come to the front.
''Don't worry; I'll go easy on you.'' Jay whispered when we reached the front.
''No talking, come on. In your positions, on the count of three. One...'' Jay and I stared at each other as Mrs. Malvy counted down, our hands slowly moving up in front of us.
''Two... Three!'' Mrs. Malvy signalled for us to go and Jay chanted the spell.
With a flick of my wrists I knocked Jay ten feet backwards and on to his back. I walked over to him and leaned down to his left ear and whispered. ''Sorry, I didn't go easy on you.'' I stood up and walked back over to where Calida stood against the wall.
''Wow, you didn't even say anything. How come you didn't have to say anything to make your spell work?'' Calida asked.
''I don't know, I guess I just practiced it a lot.'' I lied.
''But we just learnt it yesterday and you haven't even practiced.'' Calida said doubtfully.
''I don't know.'' I lied again.